Let’s Drive

Cool stuff for cool cars. Our catalogs showed those words for a long time. While it’s true—ever since Al Moss started the company in 1948—that we aim to provide the best selection of British parts, I suggested that we adopt another tagline that reflects what we believe in as much as the previous described what we do. 

My proposal: Let’s Drive. This reflects a shared passion with our customers—to drive and enjoy our cars. But what does that have to do with the business of selling car parts, some asked? While we sell car parts and accessories, what Moss is really about as a company is enjoying British sports cars and helping you to do the same.

Although my own lifespan largely coincides with the advent of the rubber bumper and smog pump, the cars that caught my eye were the sports cars from 10 to 20 years earlier, especially Big Healeys and E-Types. My father owned Triumphs and MGs and most of my exposure came from his friends and going to car shows and watching the races at Riverside International. My enthusiasm continued unabated and my high school car was my father’s old TR4A and I drove the hell out of it.

Later, other British sports cars joined the stable, but the common thread among them is that they were drivers all. It was nothing to go for a weekend-long road trip or to head up the coast to watch the historic races at Monterey. For me, British sports cars were—and remain—a time machine to an era when things were simpler yet more stylish. Beyond the sheer joy of getting behind the wheel was the chance to meet some of the kindest people in the world.

I have long suspected that British car owners tend to be nicer and more interesting. The reasoning is: natural selection. The driver of almost any other vehicle can plan a trip and be reasonably assured of making it there without drama. Most good British car stories resemble an Old Testament trial with copious amounts of smoke, fire, darkness and persecution.

British car owners have to be social to ensure a ready supply of friends to assist when things go wrong. They have good humor to deal with the inevitable stranding when the scourge of Lucas strikes unexpectedly. They deal with adversity when minor gremlins bend them over an open bonnet peering into the dark unknown. They read owner’s manuals written in confusing and confounding verbiage. Finally, British car owners have to be romantic enough to smell the bouquet of castor oil and appreciate the limits of drum brakes under foot when forced to stop unexpectedly at freeway speeds.

That sense of romance leads us to attempt speed records on the salt flats; it encourages us to emulate Walter Mitty in vintage races; it helps us pass the time with idle chatter at local car shows; it emboldens us to seek counsel from wise old mechanics who possess the gnostic secrets to carburetor tuning or wheel balancing that may—if we are not careful—disappear one day. And lastly, romance inspires us to bundle up against the cold and get in our cars for long drives when we really should be in the family Ford. In short, romance gets us out on the road. British car owners—even those that have million dollar examples like the restored NOJ 393—look forward to the road ahead (and maybe even a race if the opportunity presents itself).

We sell parts. You own cars. But together we drive them for the simple fact that we love doing so. We should drive these cars; hell, we should drive them every day when possible, and if we can help you drive your classic then we’ve answered the highest calling for folks like us. The last open road beckons—let’s go out and drive.

By John Oversteer